Recipes from a British-Chinese kitchen, mainly pinched from my parents and 婆婆.

Sunday, 14 September 2014

Cod Wrapped in Bacon, with Samphire, Potatoes and Tomatoes

Most children who are brought up in a household with Chinese cooking will be acquainted with seaweed in some form or other, and I don't mean the crispy green stuff that you get in the chippy (which isn't seaweed). One of my favourites is 紫菜湯, a yummy soup with ginger, pork, dried shrimps and fronds of greenish-brownish seaweed, which are sold in dried pancakes, and soaked and rinsed of sand several times before being dropped into the soup at the last minute to create that wonderful salty, iodine-y taste of the sea.

I really like samphire, and wish that it was available more readily. I was excited to see it at the Hawarden Estate Farm Shop, and picked up a box without a clue how to cook it. It has that lovely seaweedy taste, and a freshness and bite that goes well with a crispy slab of white (I suspect pink also) fish. Stir-frying seemed to work well, the fishmonger also told me that it's normally just boiled for a few minutes.

Be gentle with the salt in this dish, as the bacon and the samphire will both add to the flavour of the finished plate.

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees fan

Prepare the potatoes by cutting in half and placing in a single layer in a roasting dish. Add the chopped herbs, 6-8 twists of the salt mill and 10-12 twists of ground black pepper (adjust seasoning according to taste). Pour over 3-4 generous lugs of olive oil, and stir to mix the seasoning and oil with the potatoes

Place the potatoes in the oven for 35 minutes

Pre-heat the roasting tin for the cod in the same oven

Wash the cod loin and dry on kitchen towels

Sprinkle the cod with a few twists of black pepper, the wrap the streaky bacon around each loin, folding the ends underneath snugly

Wrap the streaky bacon around the cod loins

Add 3 tablespoons of olive oil to a large, heavy-based pan and heat until very hot (oil is moving around the pan). Place the cod loins, "tidy" side down, to the pan. Brown for 3-4 minutes, taking care not to move the cod around the pan too much

Using a spatula, turn the loins over and brown the bacon for a further 3-4 minutes. Remove from the heat, but reserve the frying oil

Place the loins on the pre-heated roasting tray and add the halved cherry tomatoes, cut side facing upwards. Sprinkle the tomatoes with a little salt, pepper and mixed herbs, and drizzle olive oil over

Place the roasting tray in the same oven as the potatoes, for 15 minutes

Place the browned cod loins in a dish with the tomatoes

Wash the samphire and drain. Cut off any woody stems

Reheat the pan containing the oil that was used to brown the cod. When the oil is hot, add the samphire and stir-fry for 5 minutes

Add a few twists of black pepper to the samphire and stir well before removing from the heat. Place on a warmed plate, then add the cod, tomatoes and potatoes. Serve immediately